


Unrelenting

by tob (soggysock)



Series: Creative Writing Hell 2k18-19 [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Basically keith wants to fuck shiro but shiros like nah man and goes for lance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Keith/Shiro (Voltron) Angst, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 04:43:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16695664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soggysock/pseuds/tob
Summary: Just some bs. Basically Shiro has a breakdown and Lance finds him. Keith is jealous.





	Unrelenting

Every scar that litters his body is another memory of his time on that damned ship. Each one stings as he sleeps on his back, but they only become more searing when he moves. So instead he just lays in agony, the shadows dancing along the walls teasing him. Unable to move yet still awake is how he spent the first 10 minutes of his very, very early morning. His eyes shifted rapidly, attempting to wake his body from its stupor, to make the shadows of past enemies flee from the corners of his vision.   
Shiro can’t remember the last time his ‘morning’ wasn’t spent this way. Could 3 am really be called morning? He supposes the insomniacs or workers in for a long commute might believe it to be.  
When he finally stands, a cool sweat has settled over his body and he can’t even remember the nightmare that woke him in the first place. They all muddle together these days anyway. Is that despair or is that hope?  
During the times when he is woken in the wee hours of the night, he has taken to wandering the halls. Sometimes he trains, sometimes he just walks aimlessly, tracing his human hand along the walls of the castle-ship, weathered from the countless battles and thousand years of decay from its time parked on Altea. Tonight he makes his way to the battle simulator, ready for a long night of fighting the same battlebots he has defeated time and time again. 

The only times his anxiety and the constant cries of his withered mental integrity get quiet are in battle. The only release he has is through rigorous training, the pain from overused muscles and the deep seated satiated feeling of overcoming an enemy.   
Stabbing, slashing, punching, kicking. Screaming, crying, wailing, sobbing. That’s how Lance found him. He had fallen to the ground, his invisible arm seething in pain. He didn’t remember how he ended up on the cold simulator floor, but all he can feel is the weightlessness. His stub throbs with pain. The pain of losing a limb, a comrade, an entire life and well being. Every part of his body hurt as he sobbed into the cool tile of the training simulators floor. When was the last time he was okay? Since when did he get so good at hiding his PTSD? At hiding himself from his teammates-- from the defenders of the universe? When did it get out of hand?   
The questions that spiraled through his mind as he experienced his panic attack were all noteworthy. Honorable mentions of the sleepless nights he spent asking himself them. Why did he decide to hide his mental illness? When did he decide that it was the best for him and the team of Voltron? His thoughts grow jumbled as he gasps, his unabashed sobbing causing him to fight for the oxygen in the air.   
“Shiro are you in h-” Lance begins but is cut off by the sounds of the man's breathless sobbing. It reminds him of his tia’s wails when she had found his brothers convulsing form on the ground, vomit surrounding him and his eyes rolled back into his head. The type of cry that only came from someone who was truly, undoubtedly scared or pained.   
He ran-- sprinted to Shiro’s crouched form, lightly touching his shaking shoulders. When he got no response from the man he rested his entire torso on his back, allowing his warmth to envelope Shiro in a way he likely hasn’t felt in months. Maybe even years. Shiro’s shaking only deepened and he wailed again, tears and snot dripping down his face. It was the type of cry that only resulted from someone who has needed to cry for an eternity but has never been able. Deep down Shiro felt ashamed to have been found like this. Their team leader a blubbering mess on the floor. What a guy. Some leader he is. Lance should just eject him into the dark vast space that resided outside the ship. Maybe he would be eaten by some space creature, or be gobbled up by a passing sun. He spiraled further and the unadulterated sobbing continues for an unknown amount of time before Shiro’s finally reduced to hiccups and staggered breathing. His mind felt fuzzy and he couldn’t make a coherent thought, ending his game of self depreciation and suicidal tendencies. By then the two had shifted to their sides, Lance pressed to the older mans back like a koala.   
A deep tired feeling settled into Shiro’s bones, and he wasn’t sure when he was dragged back to Lance’s bed but he allowed himself to indulge in the warmth of another human for a bit longer. A lot longer. When he woke again the day-night cycle that the ship ran on had almost repeated, the dusk fluorescent lighting filtering through his bangs. The warmth behind him remained, even then. He shifted to his back when he felt the deep rooted ache in his hips of a good nights motionless sleep on them.   
“Ready to join the realm of the living?” came the groggy voice beside him. When he looked down he was greeted with two blue orbs looking back at him, a mess of brunette hair halo-ing a brown and freckled face. At some point they had both become shirtless, Lance’s attempt at getting Shiro to calm down through skin on skin contact. Shiro closed his eyes again, shifting into a comfortable slumber. Half awake and half asleep, Shiro was able to take note of his entire surroundings. He was definitely in Lance’s room aboard the castle ship. He was shirtless, a little smelly, and he had dried tears in the corner of his eyes. His head throbbed a bit but was strangely clear.   
“How’re you feeling?” tried the latino man beside him, but he was only met with a grunt and Shiro shifting to face him; presumably to go back to sleep.   
Lance shook Shiro lightly, “Wait, Hunk brought us food. He wants us to eat at least. I told them you were sick,” he pauses, “You’re welcome to stay and sleep as long as you need, Shiro.”   
Shiro feels his eyes water a bit at the sentience. The knowledge of another human beings love and care. If he had the energy to cry he would, but currently his body was punishing him for catching up on weeks of sleepless nights in one go.   
“Don’t wanna. Head hurts,” he moans into Lance’s chest. He had mindlessly decided to forgo the ‘rules’ of friendship and move straight into cuddling territory, tucking his head into the other boys chest.   
“It’s probably because you’re dehydrated. C’mon Shiro,” Lance begins to move, attempting his escape. Shiro clamps down on his lithe body, easily manhandling Lance under his weight.   
“Stop moving and accept your fate,” Shiro says tiredly as Lance struggles beneath him. The normality of play wrestling with another individual brought warmth to his heart as he crushes the other man with his weight.   
“Hea...vy….” Lance wheezes under him, and Shiro lifts his body up a bit, just enough for breathing. In a flash Lance has seized the opportunity to flip Shiro, positioning his arms on each of the man's shoulders and heaving upwards in a feat of strength to fling his body over and off him. As Shiro is successfully flipped he scrambles away, falling off the bed and standing in triumph of his escape. 

That night Lance had won, but many nights were to come with mixed success of victories as Shiro began to sleep in Lance’s room regularly. Some nights Shiro would pull Lance into a headlock as he tried to complete his 40 minute face care routine in an attempt to compel the other boy into just sleeping already, and others Lance would drag Shiro to his room from the training simulator at night because he insisted that training for more than 3 hours at a time was unhealthy. Their relationship became a tug and pull, each of them taking care of eachother. Slowly their antics and play bled into their day life as well. It started with Shiro sitting next to Lance at the dinner table instead of between the princess and Keith, and slowly progressed into Shiro having an obvious preference as to who’s lion he would be riding in to go to diplomatic events, and to the boys entire routines syncing up, including training, showers, down time, and of course sleep schedules.   
For the first time in months Shiro got more than one night in a row of soundless sleep, and from their relationship only morphed from there. Hidden touches turned into shy hand holding, and the first night they kissed they couldn't stop themselves from doing it again. The officiallity went unsaid but known between the two. That is, until Keith found the two making out in an abandoned hallway. 

From there, things got messy. The two didn’t know what they were, and Keith didn't do much to help either. After demanding to know whether they were dating and not receiving a solid answer he walked away with a sneer. Every look of disgust he threw at them only broke Lance more, but they broke Shiro the most. Lance and Shiro knew it wasn’t homophobia that caused Keith’s hatred, but only Lance knew it was stemming from his own feelings towards Shiro. They weren’t well hidden, everyone but the man himself could tell. Meanwhile, Shiro was convinced his best friend of 6 years hated him.   
Lance pried at Shiro to get him to tell him what was wrong and why he was suddenly so closed off, but he brushed it off everytime. Eventually physical contact began to repulse him bit by bit until he couldn’t handle sleeping in the same bed as Lance anymore and he moved back into his own room, silently apologizing to Lance as tears filled his eyes. For the first night in awhile he woke up screaming with no one there to calm him down. 

 

Shiro eventually closed himself off to everyone. He shut himself down and closed up shop. His self destructive habits continued under the radar for two weeks. That is until Allura, the princess of the ship and the prettiest woman Shiro has ever had the honor of meeting found him punching the wall of his room with his right arm, prosthetic off and bloody bruises littering the tip of his scar.   
She demanded explanation and when Shiro simply shrugged in response she grew upset.  
“Why,” she exclaimed, “Why are you closing yourself off from us?” She threw her arms out in an exasperated fashion and Shiro flinched. “Do you not trust us?”  
When Shiro stayed quiet, simply sliding himself to the floor, she continued, “Shiro you’re their leader. You can’t just shut down like this! What if the enemy attacked right now? What would we do if we couldn’t form Voltron?! You’re not in a good state of mind!” Her ear twitched and she took a deep breath, calming down before starting again, “We need you, Takashi.”

Shiro was shaking, looking at the ground. It was glass shattering silent, until it wasn’t.   
“Please leave my room,” Shiro begs, voice cracking. 

 

She leaves, her heels clicking on the ground and the door whooshing shut. If he had looked up, he would’ve seen disappointment in her eyes.

Life just continued after that. He went along the same as he has, trained when he was supposed to, and formed Voltron when it was necessary. No one bothered him. No one pushed him. No one ever did. Until the day that he was kidnapped. The purple, furry Galran soldier he had been taken by mocked him, mocked him. Mocked him. Gone were the playground insults and present were the painful stabs of, “they hate you, you’re ugly, unlovable.” He believed him. Never doubted him, not for a second. His words hurt as much as the shower of bullets that had hit him the first time. 

When the team got him back this time, it wasn’t the same. There was no welcoming reunion, or happy ending. All he felt was darkness and all he saw was pain. His right arm- no, stub, burned and he fell sobbing as soon as they touched down on the castle, the one that held his family. The one that held Lance and the many painful memories.   
He was the first the exit his lion, and the first thing everyone saw when they left theirs. He was a disgrace. 

“Shiro!” Lance wails. It’s Keith to his side first. He curls in on himself and whimpers. It’s not Keith he wants.  
He feels Allura, the strong princess, pick his giant form up and he shivers. Not her either. He allows her to carry him to the infirmary, though, and she quickly strips him to assess wounds. The team doesn’t follow, except, of course, Keith and Lance. When Keith enters, averting his eyes from Shiro’s naked form, he sits next to him and takes his human hand. Shiro pulls away and the look of sadness on Keith’s overwhelms him. He can’t bring himself to care at the moment as he looks to the door where Lance is entering. His eyes plead and Lance looks away from them. 

Shiro feels cold. 

The next time he wakes, he is on an infirmary bed, all his minor wounds cared for. Keith lays his head on Shiro’s lap, Lance nowhere in sight.   
“Morning,” says Keith, his purple eyes looking into Shiro’s tired ones.   
Shiro looks away.  
Keith quickly stands, “Why won’t you look at me the same way?”   
“What?”  
“You reject me, your best friend, your favorite. Your… your me! For him! What’s so special! What does he have that I don’t!?”   
Shiro looks on, head dizzy with emotions, “I don’t know. He doesn’t. Nothing.” he pauses and thinks, not nothing. So many things. “But Keith? Right now I have no one.” He brings his hands to his eyes, no tears are shed, not yet, only frustrated wrinkles scattering his brows are smoothed with his action.   
“You have me!” Keith exclaims. “You’ve always had me! Why do you push me away, and away, and away?”   
“Because I love him.” He whispers.   
“What?”  
“Because I love him, Keith. He knew what I needed and he gave that to me. I’m sorry, I can’t change it. If I could change things, I would. I would still have my fucking arm, I would be able to sleep like a normal fucking person. I wouldn’t have constant anxiety or suffer from mind numbing panic attacks. If I could change things I would be married. I would have a family, maybe even children, Keith. But you know what? Right now, you’re not who I need and you definitely aren't helping me.”   
Keith glares, tears pricking his vision and blurring it as he exits the room.   
Shiro is allowed to leave the infirmary that day, but he doesn’t sleep well again that night. His dreams are riddled with nightmares and he wakes up three times with his shirt plastered to his body from sweat. He see’s Keith in his dreams, sobbing and blaming him for his hard, hard life. He sees Lance, in his room, his brown cheeks stained with tears.   
He wakes up and he knows it’s reality he was dreaming about this time. 

He rises, walking to his regular spot on sleepless nights like these. The training bot. He presses the panel, watching as the whooshes open. He is startled to see the bot running and a tall latino man fighting the battle bots with intense emotions. 

The bot stops and Lance’s heaving chest turns to him. He wipes a drip of sweat from his forehead and looks to Shiro with surprise.   
“Can’t sleep?” Shiro jumps at his own voice, looking at Lance expectantly.  
“Not without you.”   
Shiro pauses, not knowing how to answer. “Me too.” he settles. They both sit in silence for a moment.   
“I missed you.” He finally grits out, “I’ve missed you so, so much. I haven’t slept. The Galra, the galra…” He stops, gasping for air. He hadn’t noticed when he began hyperventilating.   
“They’re just overrated furries, Shiro. Anything they say is wrong.” Lance walks up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Why didn’t you ever come back to bed with me?” Lance asks solemnly.   
“Scared. Told Keith to fuck off.”  
Lance snorts, “glad someone finally did.”   
“He cried.”   
“I did too.” says Lance.   
“I’m sorry.” Shiro’s voice cracks.   
“It’s. . .” he pauses, “It’s not okay. Probably never will be, Shiro.” Lance runs a hand through his hair, “But it wasn’t entirely your fault and I want to try.”   
“I do too.” 

The two move closer and Shiro hugs Lance’s tiny form to his chest.   
“No, I smell bad-”Lance begins but he is silenced when Shiro shakes with a sob. 

“We can do this.” Lance says firmly. “I know we can.”

**Author's Note:**

> Lmao i wrote this for creative writing and decided to try my hand at posting fanfiction again.  
> Tumblr is @soggiersocks


End file.
